Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station Tour!!

[Music] hey there and welcome to my South Pole Station tour video before we begin to actually walk around the building and actually show you what the station looks like I figured first I wanted to give you an overview of the station so you kind of have an idea of what's going on you know as we're walking around the station so pardon my horrible drawing ability because believe it or not that is not some weird animal thing this is actually a bird's-eye view of the South Pole Station now there are two levels to the station so it looks just like this and there's one and then two levels and overall the whole thing is split into two different pods so there's one half over here and this is the B pod and then this whole half over here is the a pod now as far as orientation goes if you were to arrive at the South Pole the first place you walk in is right here there's a set of stairs and this area this door is known as destination alpha or da now the ski way that the runway where the airplanes land is actually down here so once you land you take your bags and you walk all the way up there and then you walk into the station for the first time so as you can see the main overall layout of the station is that there is one long hallway going down here and then four different wings jutting out from that area now most of the important things on station like all the recreational areas or a galley or the medical office those are all here in the long hallway and these other wings are generally a bit more simple so for example here we have a one and a four those are just entirely dorms or we call them birthing areas in fact my room is approximately right there but on the second floor this one is technically b4 and there is our gym and so both our big gym which is like the basketball court sized area and also our small gym and I'll obviously show you that on or here's where it gets a little bit interesting so this whole area this is b1 now b1 is special because it is our lifeboat in a way so if all things hit the fan and we lose power we lose our power plant and water and all those things this is a place we can go so it has dorms it has a birthing area which people actually live in throughout the year but on top of that there's also a lounge a small kitchen a washer and dryer a TV room and in fact its own little power plants as well so if things really get bad that is where we'll end up going and I'll show you all that stuff I'll show you the power plant and I'll show you the TV in the lounge area what not so but yeah that right there is a general layout of the station or here you have what's called the beer can that's at the end of the hall you can get into it on both the first and second floors and that actually takes you down below the ice and into the arches and the tunnels and we're like the power plant and all that stuff is but I'm gonna show you all the batch in another tour video but now I'm actually gonna have a little version of this map in the corner so they'll be right there and there'll be a little dot kind of going around so you can see where we are in the station and you know relative to everything else yeah let's let's get started umm I apologize in advance I this is gonna be a long video there's a lot lot to see here so buckle up and I hope you enjoy it but let's go we're gonna go ahead and start where you would start if you were to arrive at destination alpha all right here we are welcome to destination alpha or da this is like I said the end of the station we're on the first floor right now and this is the primary entrance that you're gonna come into when you first arrive in South Pole so well actually uh step outside real quick I can't be out there for too long cuz obviously I'm wearing not really much of anything but you can kind of see here so you can kind of see here beautiful day but over there that's the runway the ski way and that's the fuels area and all that stuff so that's where the planes land and then basically you walk all the way over walk up these stairs and come into the station and I'm freezing holy crap oh boy okay yeah that's uh that's too cold but anyways so here is da and this is where you first come into the station and there's already a few things right in this area that are interesting that you might want to see so first is actually the b3 lounge so this right here is the b3 lounge it is a very nice space with a projector and the windows stay covered all year because obviously you want it to be nice and nice and dark when you're watching TV and also this is where you do your orientation when you first get to the station so you'll sit down here and they'll play like a little slideshow kind of demonstrating the rules and some of the things that you need to know you know while you heard the South Pole but here we have a coatroom and the most important thing here is the popcorn machine popcorn is like a huge part of life here at the South Pole I eat more popcorn when I'm here then I do in my life ever anywhere else it's actually pretty ridiculous and disgusting the amount of popcorn we go through but it's great to have and then moving on so there is the entrance going this way the first cool room that you see over here is this one which is the music room which is just absolutely wonderful as you can see I mean it's really well stocked and even we got a to buy even and a bunch of ukuleles and I think this is really cool we have a electric cello so that's pretty sweet oh yeah so this is the music room a nice little space to come if you are you know musically inclined there are a lot of bands especially during the summer that come and they form down here and then they play like concerts and whatnot and it's it's a lot of fun but and then next which is also quite interesting is right here this is the big gym so this is where any you know bigger activities take place so basketball volleyball badminton we've been playing wiffle ball which has been a lot of fun and anything like that all all happens in this space we'll also have the occasional party here and this is also where you can see that you can see the big screen over in the back that's where we'll do like the shining and thing and all those other traditional movies and also on some long weekends we'll set up the movie screen and whatnot for for just general watching and whatnot but yeah it's quite nice down here also we have up there is the weight gym but we'll get there and we'll get there later that's later but let's continue on so moving down the hall moving on this is quite me so here actually we have these display cases which are pretty cool but these are definitely the coolest ones these are all the pull markers because I think I've explained before because the ice sheet is moving relative to the station the South Pole moves as well and so every year the winner of her crew makes a new pole marker and so once the new one is out the old one gets put into these display cases and you can actually see here right there is the one that we designed in 2017 in my last winter and everyone got to like sign that piece right there with that with an engraving gun so my name is on there and it's pretty neat so this'll be here the speaker forever but as you can see the hallway is long and it goes this way there and there's a lot of stuff to see on the way so let's go alright here we have the Ute room nothing particularly exciting you can see just split workshop tools and stuff next up here we have the comms office so this is where you know there's a it's a server room over there in an office and you see here we're getting ready for the summer all these radios or radios are getting ready they're being made for yeah I've already got names and stuff on them so plane is coming soon it's crazy to think about but that is the IT comms office trying to be someone fast in this because I know this is gonna be a ridiculously long video hmm but we're walking down the hall here is one of the decks this is one of the two smoking decks that we have so here's one here and then there's one upstairs as well and that is where smokers can go so you see I don't know when I got sad but that's kind of what it looks like nice little deck and now next up we actually have the emergency power plant so I'm gonna had enough tagged myself in here real quick but yeah here it is so this right here is the emergency power plan like I mentioned before the be pod the b1 pod there can be isolated and basically be turned into a lifeboat if anything were to go seriously wrong and then this is what we would use for power so I've got a couple generators here and whatnot so if you go through there as well there's a little hallway that leads to the other berthing the other dorm area but this is uh this is the emergency power plant and we hope to never use it because that means something has really really gone wrong that's kind of kind of neat to see so yeah onwards all right next up we have another really cool space that we are quite lucky to have and that is oh look at that that's so beautiful but the South Pole craft room Oh so as a general statement McMurdo has more facilities than we do here at the South Pole and that is that is simply because there are so many more people and they need more stuff and larger spaces but I will say that one of the things that we have better here is actually the craft room I think that our arts and crafts room is significantly less nicer than the one at McMurdo there is more space it's bigger which is kind of funny and you know we have we have probably more supplies but I'm not quite sure on that one but I think overall it's it's a nicer craft room and yeah so it's it's a nice little perk of being its South Pole so if someone is crafty they can they have a lot of it they have access to a lot of different things that they can do down here and it's it's quite nice and they've the crew has done some some really nice work in this area also they built that which is amazing like it's so cool it's just very pretty yeah that is the arts and crafts room a wonderful space if you are a crafty person onwards all right so now as I explained before we are crossing in from the B pod into the a pod so now we're on the other half of the building and of course there's there's more to see here now before we continue I do want to share that there is a little bit of disarray currently in the hallway here coming up and that is only because we are currently cleaning the greenhouse and also Skua which I'll explain in like a second is in full-swing so there's there's some stuff in the hallway while certain spaces are being cleaned like the greenhouse so yeah that's why but first we're gonna go into this side hall here and this is this is Skua which is what I was talking about so basically skuas are these birds that exist at McMurdo we don't have them here cuz there's no wildlife at all and these birds are scavengers so at all the stations American stations we have the Skua area which is basically where people put things that they don't want anymore they donate them and then anyone can grab them and because we're at the end of the winter everyone's getting rid of everything so there's there's a lot of random stuff here but that is right next to the quiet reading room which is another one of my favorite spaces on station it is super relaxing and look at all these different books we have and one of my favorite things probably is is that right there I I enjoy playing a little bit of piano myself so if I ever feel like I need to hang out and do that then I actually come here I don't go to the music room interestingly enough I I come here and I play some piano and it's a really nice space it's a really good area for social gatherings as well people generally tend to come here to hang out if they want to do something a little smaller a little more low-key and yeah you can you know you can play some music in here but it's it's definitely an area for more low-key gatherings and it's quite nice I like to come here sometimes like I'm here to work and edit and I mean read even and whatnot so yeah it's really great I mean we have all kinds of books you know this whole area which is quite nice is the Travel section for you know post ice travels but then you have everything to various you know foreign languages and science chemistry true stories and then of course novels and such so it's uh it's a really cool space it's a really cool space and it's it's named after her right there Ruth J cycle so yeah that's the quite reading room alright now here comes the the Messier stuff in the hallway you can see there's there's a couch that's drying out it was cleaned but this right here now we are in the a4 dorm or the birthing area and because it is still winter there's nobody staying in these rooms yet which means I can kind of show you what that area looks like without having to be too quiet so basically all the different door mirrors are set up in the same way aside from b1 we'll get there in that they have the main hallway going into where all the dorms are and then they have a men's restroom and a women's restroom so yeah and I'll have both of these half showers or whatnot so when you go in this is basically what they look like and I mean they look the same in all the different wings you just have you know doors going down a hallway and then if you go into one of these rooms don't know I'm knocking there's no one here but this right here that is a this is a standard room at the South Pole so like I explained there are three different dorm areas on station we have a 1 a 4 and B 1 and this is a 4 the thing about a 1 which is where I'm currently living is those rooms are slightly smaller aside from that there's no difference I mean there's slight difference in furniture just because there's more space you can see this this room is quite quite tiny compared to the room that I have but yeah so b1 is also the same size as this it's it's smaller rooms which I mean for most people is okay most people don't bring too much stuff down but I definitely like having the extra space because of all I have bring a little more stuff than maybe I should but yeah this is basically what a room looks like I personally prefer the inside rooms because it stays a little bit warmer so as you can see here's here are the inside rooms there and the door is basically alternate from we decided the hallway yeah this is what all the dorm areas look like so from now on I'm just gonna walk by them and say that's a dorm area and now you know it looks like in there but moving on next up we have the super super thrilling laundry room yep not much here you do your laundry save water you're only supposed to do one load of laundry per week and that's that and then one of the best spaces on station is the greenhouse but it has it's currently being clean but it's alright you know it's a yearly thing to a deep-clean of the area so if you want to see more about the greenhouse I made a video fully solely about the greenhouse it'll link right up here so you can click on that if you want to watch that instead but the greenhouse is a really really nice place on station it's a great little area for social gatherings there's a little sitting room and stuff and it's it's a good place if you want to get some humidity and and whatnot so then just smell some plants but then right next to me here a little bit further down this is the store and yeah obviously it's closed right now it is in the middle of the night it is currently about 2:40 a.m. because I don't want to put people in my video that don't want to be in the video so that's why I'm filming at night yeah this is the store this is where we buy you know anything that we need so we have supplies in there like toiletries also booze and souvenirs and all kinds of stuff like that so that's the store during the summer I don't know exactly know how often it's open but during the winter it's open in three days and right here we have an example of Antarctic recycling and waste management we're very very particular about splitting up everything as you can see even for like ferrous metal the non ferrous metal they're very particular on how we split everything up I mean batteries are split into multiple types and yeah it's it's it's really important to make sure that that waste is managed properly down here and everything gets taken off the continents so it's it's definitely something good that we do and then here is what is known as destination Zulu or DZ so at the end of the hall where we began that with destination alpha or da this is DZ not primary entrance or anything but there is a set of stairs going down there and out into the Antarctic abyss all right back in sex it's cold all right and on we go so now we are approaching the end of the hallway and here you have a one downstairs so these are more dorms like I said they look like the other ones that we saw the only difference is that these are going to be the a1 rooms so they're slightly bigger than the a4 rooms that I showed you but here is the last thing that is of significant interest on this floor and it is a space that I absolutely love the sauna so in here this is like a little sitting area a little space for you don't get changed and whatnot and then go into the actual sauna and this is yeah here is the sauna is definitely one of my favorite places on the station I I haven't really been using it nearly enough here at the end of the season it's it's kind of a bummer I've been quite busy but it's it's I've said this before in a different video in my five favorite places at the South Pole this is the one space that I feel like I can actually like escape while I'm here head pull which is quite rare because yeah no matter what you do these feels like you're in like a spaceship even in the greenhouse because it is so artificial but here where it's nice and dark you turn off that white light it's just it's wonderful it's it's truly nice and yeah sauna is a wonderful place but that right there is the end of everything good to see here on the first floor but there is the entire second floor to show you so what we're going to do is we're actually going to jump back to where we were so up to the DA destination office side of the building and start there on the second floor and then work our way to this side again and then here's the beer can but we're going to talk about that more at the end but yeah let's uh let's jump to the other end all right welcome to the upstairs so we are back at the other end of the building in fact these stairs right here go down to your destination alpha which is where we started this whole adventure and yeah now we are on the same end but on the second floor so the first thing I'm going to show you is the observation deck and I've actually shown you this many a times in many a video where I go outside to show you what it looks like so once again wearing a t-shirt it's not going to go out for too long but get a quick little peek so yeah that's thin out here it's very nice out today it's beautiful but obviously still very cold so I'm gonna go back inside but you can see a good view of the surrounding area there's the Dark Sector alright it's time I can't do this oh okay that's a lot okay so but the first thing to show you the actual station is where we actually started this video for real which is the large conference room lots of Sun in here but yeah sirs the whiteboard that I was drawing on yeah here's basically a big conference room we do a lot of different stuff in this conference room it's quite nice for one we have any type of big meetings during the winter here so if we need to have a safety meeting for everyone or anything along those lines we we meet here in the conference room because there's enough space for everybody the other big thing that we do here is that there are classes here so I've talked before about like Robert Schwartz is astronomy class or I taught a wine class it actually just ended today today was the last day of the wine class but this is this place we are you know we've got we've got the nice TV back there and enough places for everyone to sit down and so this is where we do a lot of those types of things it's pretty cool area but yeah that is the large conference room moving on over here we have one of my favorite places on the entire station the weight gym so I actually spent a lot of time in this room during my time here at South Pole for most of the winter I was in here five times a day with my buddy we were lifting weights and I come in and do some cardio and stuff as well but yeah it's uh it's a really nice space it's it's quite small so I can't imagine what it's like in the summer but during the winter it's a great size a lot of people can fit in here and you know get the exercise they need which is really important here at altitude make sure you have that cardio strength since we are at like ten thousand feet with a you know a physio altitude but yeah this is the weight room it's it's quite nice and down there is the big gym which I already showed you on the first floor so if there's anything going on there you can you know be on the elliptical and be watching something like Ollie ball but yeah that's the way room and on we go alright so next up in this area this whole kind of portion here well okay first of all I'll show you this real quick this is this is the small conference room so like the large conference room but smaller yeah I've used this room for official things like twice but there's a morning meeting that happens here every day and stuff so this room definitely does get used as well but anyways oh also here is one of the if not the original South Pole sign when the first station was built here the first South Pole Station which I believe was 1956 so this was outside for a long time but now we obviously have a new sign but anyways so this whole area here is kind of like admin and offices and stuff like that so I'll go ahead and show you but first up in the corner here is where we have our communications so this is where that thing just scared me anyway so this is the communications room so this is what we do everything from flight tracking during the summer there is a firefighter sitting here at all times and they're you know monitoring things and making sure now you know doing all the radio comms and whatnot in addition during the winter this is also our incident command center so if we have an emergency this is where the people in charge will go because they have all the different radios to the different channels to the different emergency response teams so they can coordinate whatever effort needs to be done in order to you know mitigate said situation but yeah this right here is the comms room it's pretty pretty neat room and there's a little massage chair right there which is quite nice but yeah anyways it moving on over here basically is where we have all the admin stuff so actually there's there's the office of our winter site manager fun fact he he walks a lot yeah so far this season he's walked one thousand four hundred and fifty eight miles so and he was also our station manager in 2017 so you can see here almost 3,000 miles I think that's his goal is to get the 3,000 miles before the end of the winter which that's a lot of walking yeah like I said here is basically just offices obviously they're pretty much all unoccupied right now during the winter but during the summer there's someone in all of them and now from this area is how you get to a little room we call Kinkos so this is basically where you can go to get any sort of supplies you know like hole punches and glue and tape and binder clips and all kinds of stuff like that and you have you've got a printer and a copier and all that stuff over there so this we called this little area Kinkos which is you know pretty appropriate I would say and then not dark and then over here we just have some more office space as well so you can see is a little print of of the winter crew photo which I'm gonna take home so yeah yeah that that is all the admin type stuff we do have one more office right here off the main hall which is the HR office so once again during the summer there will be someone in there but during the winter there's not so now we came out here that's where he went in was right over there yeah let's continue walking down the hall so and now on my left is arguably one of the most important rooms on the entire station and the sole reason that we are actually here the science lab so of course most of the science actually happens outside whether it be the telescopes and whatnot but this room here is basically where all the computers are and we're all the grantees the scientists have their stuff so yeah pretty pretty important space we'll take a look inside all right so here we are welcome to be to science there is nobody in here right now which is interesting but basically over here in this corner we have our meteorology department so that's where weather type stuff happens this little fume hood is special to me particularly because it is where we do our fuel testing of the fuel samples so we have to test the fuel every time before an airplane comes so we need to make sure it's not contaminated with water or sediment or anything like that and then over here is basically all of the different work areas for the different science projects that are going on so yeah I don't know like ice cubes they're South Pole telescope is here right on the other side we got a bicep so you know all different cubicles for different people and then this area here that is all for the RAS or the research associates so they're the ones helping out but also keeping other smaller projects alive that don't have full-time grantees here things like the super darn and other other smaller things like the aurora cameras and whatnot so yeah so this is b2 science the reason we are at the South Pole is to do science so this is a pretty important room there's two doors it's a very big room so we're going to go out the other side so we went in over there there's some stairs that go down but now this place we're going to next is definitely like the pulse of the social life here at the South Pole that is the b1 lounge so here we are here is the lounge and this is essentially where pretty much all social activity on the station lives so particularly Saturday nights this is a proud of room this is where everybody hangs out as you can see we've got we've got a pool table we've got the dartboard and I'll just going on over there and of course the little sitting area and like I was talking about before this is b1 so this is the emergency pod that I was talking about so as you can see here this is actually our mini little kitchen so underneath that white thing is actually a stove so once again if things were to go really really poorly and we get stuck in here and that is where we would be making our food so like I said before definitely not ideal and as you can see going through here there are more dorms so this is this is one that is slightly different actually so right below the lounge that we just left that's where the power plant is so there's more dorms there and then more dorms downstairs but because of the layout there's not a men's and women's bathroom on both floors there's men's up here womens are downstairs and then on top of that here we have our emergency communications area that's where like ham radio and things like that are which once again hopefully we never have to use but going back going back into the lounge there is one other little side room over here that I'm going to show you and that is the b1 TV lounge so it's like b3 that I showed you at the very beginning but slightly different these couches are actually a lot more comfortable than the couches down there but you can see there's a TV and there's actually some video games and then a huge DVD selection so yeah this is definitely a good space the sounds here pretty the sound is pretty nice here as well so I definitely like hanging out and here I've watched watched many of things in this room oh yeah this is another one of those recreational areas and it's really nice to have it attached directly to this this primary lounge out here but that is uh that is all for the b1 lounge so let's move on alright continuing down the long long hallway and like before we are not going from the B pod into the a pod so here we are we are now in the a pod and approaching the next thing which is the computer lab so it's quite a few purposes to this area for one it is where all the computers are I do find it comical we do have more computers in our computer lab and mcmurdo does which is kind of funny considering we have significantly less people but on top of that we have um or here are all the different cubicles of the different people that different departments and such and then of course this large cubicle is the IT department and yeah here you can see my buddy Josh's desk he's been in a few these videos but he's also the recreation coordinator so you can see the calendar there with all the stuff but yeah this is that's the computer lab and are we go alright and then we are back to a four so this is the wing that I showed you the actual dorms in when we were downstairs it looks the exact same up here so we're not going to go inside but yes here's a four and now that summer is about to start these rooms are about to start filling up but this hallway now is actually quite special it's a really cool area and it's because it is where all the winterover photos are so because the summer crew is so fluid people come in for a couple weeks at a time and such they don't get to like take a group photo or anything like that however the winter crew because you know we're here for so long you know one's coming in and out we actually get to take a group photo and pretty special here is our photo the 2019 South Pole winner over crew that's me right there yeah it's a pretty big deal to me I actually was I was a huge part of taking a taking this photo but yeah so here are all the different winterover photos and it's pretty special to get to be on this wall because this will be here you know as long as America has the station here at the South Pole and there's the 2017 photo which I'm also in because I was also here in 2017 and then up here you can see is club Med this is our doctor's office cleaning supplies things are going on yes over here we have like the trauma Bay over in that area is the dentist chair for the summer and then over here is kind of like the ward area so I guess kind of the hospitalization place and then there's the main doctor's office and then up here is the piays office and the pharmacy why not so yeah this is this is medical pretty cool and because I am part of ERT four so the the medical trauma team emergency response team I'm in here once a week you know we're doing various trainings which is pretty neat I've gotten to learn some really really cool stuff but yeah turn off lights but yeah moving on I'm getting close freaking close we're almost done we're almost done all right and lastly probably one of the most important areas on the entire station the galley oh right so first up here is the dish pit it is currently Hut obviously as you can see because it's not a meal time and it's not night so we don't have a steward working that means if you're gonna eat something in the evening you just need to do your own dishes and that's also true for Sundays during the winter since we don't have a steward working or anyone in the galley actually working on Sundays but then next thing here you have is the coffee bar this is where people put coffees this is all Skua stuff people ordered way too much for the winter myself included so people put it here and now it's yeah now it's cool but also here we have these community fridges so if there is a meal in particular that you really enjoyed during the week you can put it here like wrap it up and a plate and then put it here and then you can eat it later it is particularly useful in the winter because there's nobody working on Sundays in the galley so you know you have to eat something that's leftover and there's little well we'll get to that in a second but this is the community fridge so you can you know put your own stuff in there but moving on the next the next really important thing is something that we don't have at mcmurdo because it McMurdo they have the soft-serve thing but here we have a real ice cream it's a pretty big deal and it's also awesome but I weirdly like the soft-serve at McMurdo I don't know yeah here you can see the general layout of the galley during the winter there's significantly fewer tables in addition right behind me here we actually make a bit of a lounge so we're bringing a couple couches and it's a good place for people to hang out we'll have like a bar night so well actually like people pitch in and buy some booze so we can understand behind that bar and actually make some drinks and whatnot so but yeah everything's all all set up for the summer now so it's tables on tables on tables it's pretty crazy well yeah you can see also it's crazy how different it looks in the summer compared to the winter because in the winter like all of these windows are covered up and you can't see outside anything but yeah but here is the kitchen pretty good and then here is the leftover fridge that I was talking about so essentially whenever there is leftovers from a meal which there always is and they put it in containers and put it in here so if you want to eat it again later than you can you can do that but it's totally broken as you can see so it's all being put over there but yeah now we go through this little hallway here and now we're pretty much at the end some food storage but right in through there that is actually where my dorm is as well like I said it looks the same as has all the other ones so now we go into a beer can but yeah that door is a pain yeah here we are we are now in the beer can and it's like negative 50 degrees so I'm gonna have to make this quick but this is where we're gonna start part two of the tour which is going to take us down under the ice into the arches and you'll see like where the tunnels start and all that kind of stuff but this is uh this is it yeah so this is where we put some trash and stuff and then trash down there as well which then gets fit on this elevator that's right here it's currently down so you can't see it but it gets put on that elevator which then gets sent down to the bottom where we process all the waste but yeah that's uh that's the elevated station I hope that was interesting hopefully this video isn't too long I know it's gonna be long so if you're still here thank you I appreciate it but yeah like I said that's it I hope you enjoyed it and if you did you know what to do go down below hit the little like button and subscribe and hit the bell and comment and share with anyone that wants to see what the South Pole station looks like and yeah I will see you on part two of this tour [Music]

Channel: Gone Venturing

Views: 468,010

Keywords: South Pole, South Pole Station Tour, South Pole Video Tour, Amundsen-Scott South Pole, Amundsen, Scott, Arctic, Antarctica (continent), Antarctic, South Pole Winter, visit antarctica, work in antarctica, goneventuring, victor antarctica, nsf polar, the south pole, north pole south pole, science, south pole station winter over, Antarctica Winter, how to work in antarctica, south pole station documentary, amundsen-scott south pole station, south pole inside, inside south pole station

Id: 2bNRNqaKxZ8

Length: 43min 31sec (2611 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Spanky_McJiggles]

Part 2 of the tour can be found here.

[u/Libukai]

Way more comfy than i expected. Cool